Europe is on high alert. In the space of just ten days, synagogues have been bombed, a Jewish school targeted with explosives, arson attacks set at houses of worship, and the United States Embassy in Norway struck by a terrorist bomb all as a newly identified Islamist terror group launches what security analysts are describing as the most coordinated wave of antisemitic and anti-Western attacks on European soil in over a decade.
Belgium has now taken the dramatic step of deploying its military to guard Jewish institutions across the country a move that signals just how seriously governments are taking a threat that is spreading faster than law enforcement can contain it.
Belgium’s Defense Minister Theo Francken and Interior Minister Bernard Quintin jointly announced the military deployment, with Francken declaring: “The safety of every citizen must be guaranteed,” and adding that “antisemitism and hatred against Jews will never be tolerated.”
Belgium will deploy Defence and Federal Police forces to reinforce security at synagogues and Jewish schools following recent antisemitic attacks, with the operation coordinated by the police in close cooperation with the military. NPR The deployment is expected to cover 24 locations initially, including four Jewish schools in Antwerp and 20 synagogues.
For the first time, the attacks have been attributed to a single, previously unknown Islamist terrorist organisation. Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combatting Antisemitism traced the attacks to a hitherto unknown Islamist terrorist group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right (IMCR). In videos uploaded online, the group was linked to at least three additional attacks over the past week, outside a synagogue in Rotterdam, a Jewish school in Amsterdam, and also a bank in Amsterdam.
The group identified itself as the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right (IMCR), and is described as an Islamic resistance-aligned terror group that carried out the explosion in a synagogue in Liège, Belgium, as well as similar-style attacks in the Netherlands.
The emergence of the IMCR previously unknown to European intelligence services has raised urgent questions about how a new terror cell was able to plan and execute multiple coordinated attacks across two countries before being identified. Its videos, circulated on social media platforms, show a calculated attempt to document and publicise its campaign, suggesting an organisation with media sophistication as well as operational capability.
The current wave of violence effectively opened in the Norwegian capital. At approximately 01:00 on March 8, 2026, an unknown attacker set off an explosive device at the consular entrance to the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway, causing limited damage to the structure and no injuries. U.S. Energy Information Administration
Oslo police officials suggested at a news conference that the loud explosion, heard early on the morning of March 8, could be connected to the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. “It’s natural to see this in the context of the current security situation and that this could be an attack deliberately targeting the U.S. embassy,” said Frode Larsen, head of the Oslo police investigation unit.
The investigation moved swiftly. Norwegian police arrested three brothers suspected of carrying out the “terror bombing” attack on the U.S. Embassy in Oslo. The unnamed men, all Norwegian citizens in their 20s with Iraqi heritage, were taken into custody in the Norwegian capital. Police lawyer Christian Hatlo told reporters the brothers were suspected of deliberately targeting the embassy with a powerful improvised explosive device, with the intention of killing or causing serious harm. Three brothers and their mother have since been remanded in police custody for up to four weeks on suspicion of taking part in the bombing. One of the men has admitted to placing the device.
American diplomatic missions worldwide had already been placed on high alert following joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran that began on February 28. U.S. diplomatic missions in Dubai and Riyadh had reportedly been targeted by Iranian drones, prompting the State Department to close embassies in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Kuwait.
One day after Oslo, an explosive device detonated near the synagogue in Liège. myjoyonline Belgian police conducted their investigation outside the synagogue on Leon Fredericq street after it was hit overnight by the blast. The attack, attributed by Israeli intelligence to the IMCR, was the first strike on a Jewish institution in Belgium in years and it would not be the last.
The campaign then crossed into the Netherlands with devastating speed. A few days after Liège, incidents took place in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, including a fire set at a synagogue and an explosion at a Jewish school. myjoyonline Toronto police also haven’t ruled out a possible link between a recent string of shootings at synagogues in that city and broader international developments raising fears that the wave of violence is now transcontinental.
No one was hurt in the attacks, which resulted in minor damage to property a fact that may owe more to luck and timing than to the attackers’ intentions.
The military deployment did not emerge from nowhere. Belgium’s Jewish community concentrated primarily in Antwerp, home to one of the largest ultra-Orthodox communities in Europe had already been enduring an intensifying campaign of street-level violence before the Liège bombing brought the threat to national attention.
In recent weeks, at least eight Haredi Jews have been attacked in Antwerp. Bloomberg The cumulative numbers tell their own story. According to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, antisemitic incidents recorded in Belgium increased from 57 in 2022 to 121 in 2023, and surged to 277 in 2024. Survey data from 2023 further underscores the impact on daily life 84% of Jewish respondents in Belgium view antisemitism as a major problem in their lives, 83% believe it has increased over the past five years, and 97% reported encountering antisemitic behaviour in the year prior to the survey.
Interior Minister Quintin said: “In a context of growing antisemitism, the attack that took place at the Liège synagogue reminded us that the threat facing Belgium’s Jewish community is very real. Ensuring the safety of our citizens is the responsibility of the state in all its components and beyond any political considerations.”
Jewish parliamentarian Michael Freilich, who had long pressed the government for exactly this kind of action, welcomed the decision but did not spare criticism for how long it took. Freilich has criticised the judiciary for what he said was lenient treatment of perpetrators of antisemitic attacks, arguing this had actively encouraged further violence.
Not everyone in government welcomed the deployment unconditionally. Justice Minister Annelies Verlinden told the French-language Belgian daily Le Soir that the matter “was not discussed in advance within the government.” CNBC Antwerp MP Sam van Rooy questioned why soldiers were needed, saying the federal government and the Antwerp city administration should be the ones to ensure that there are enough police officers to guard the Jewish neighbourhood.
This is not the first time Belgium has turned to the military to secure Jewish institutions. Similar measures were implemented in 2015 in response to terror threats. Bloomberg That it has come to this again eleven years later, in a supposedly more secure Europe speaks to how dramatically the continent’s security environment has deteriorated.
The timing of this wave of attacks is not coincidental. Every intelligence assessment, every police statement, and every analyst commentary points to the same root cause: the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, launched on February 28, 2026.
The blast in Oslo came at a time of heightened security for U.S. embassies and consulates around the world as Israel and the United States conducted a rapidly escalating bombing campaign against Iran. Multiple U.S. diplomatic buildings in Gulf kingdoms that host American troops had been targeted by Iranian retaliatory strikes, including in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The pattern is clear. As the Iran war radicalises populations and emboldens existing terror networks, Europe’s Jewish communities and Western diplomatic missions have become proxy targets for groups seeking to strike at what they see as symbols of the American and Israeli alliance. Authorities are worried about the potential spread of violence as people react to the war with Iran.
The response from Jewish organisations across Europe has been both grateful and grim. The European Jewish Congress welcomed Belgium’s decision, saying: “The safety of synagogues, schools, and community spaces is essential. This step sends an important signal that the protection of Jewish life is a priority and that concrete action is being taken in the face of rising antisemitism.” It also warned that the need for such heightened protection reflects “the very real security concerns faced by Jewish communities in Belgium and across Europe.”
The Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organizations in Belgium (CCOJB) said the measures will offer Belgian Jews greater peace of mind, adding simply: “Thank you to the soldiers for their protection.”
What is unfolding across Europe right now is not simply a series of isolated attacks. It is a test of European democracies’ commitment to protecting their most vulnerable minorities, of intelligence services’ ability to identify and neutralise new terror threats, and of Western governments’ willingness to confront the downstream consequences of a war launched thousands of miles away from the streets of Liège, Amsterdam, and Oslo.
Belgium has passed its first test by deploying soldiers to synagogue gates. But as the IMCR’s own videos make clear, this organisation is not deterred by the prospect of security measures. It is advertising its attacks, recruiting on that basis, and challenging governments to escalate.
The soldiers outside the synagogues of Antwerp are a welcome sight. The question Europe must now answer is whether armed guards at 24 locations are a solution — or the first line of a much longer, much harder war being fought not in the Gulf, but in the very heart of the continent itself.
